


Unimpressed

by Thuri



Series: 100 Prompts Fulfilled [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 05:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thuri/pseuds/Thuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton had been fully prepared to be unimpressed by Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unimpressed

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into English available: [无动于衷（Chinese version of Unimpressed by Thuri）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/529486) by [qingtan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qingtan/pseuds/qingtan)



> Filling another picture [prompt](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4vt3qMbBH1r17zsqo1_1280.jpg)

Clint Barton had been fully prepared to be unimpressed by Steve Rogers.

Captain America had been something of a childhood hero to him--nothing like he’d been to Phil, something he’d teased his lover over more than once--but a hero all the same. And Clint knew very well what heroes and mentors could be like in the real world.

At best, he figured Rogers had actually been a pawn, nothing near as amazing as he’d been made out to be, just a guy in a suit who’d shown off for the cameras. At worst...at worst he’d been human, just like everyone else. Heroic self-sacrifice could’ve just as easily been the powers that be not wanting the truth to get out. He’d seen it himself, when agents went bad. You didn’t tell their families you’d shot them in the back yourself to keep them from gassing the base.

You made up a story of how bravely they’d gone out, how heroic they’d been, how everyone owed their lives to their bravery.

When in fact everyone owed their lives to the sniper’s bullet (or arrow).

So no, even if Phil had been nearly beside himself with excitement over the SHIELD expedition to find the captain, even if he’d nearly had an aneurysm when they’d found him, Clint had been prepared for Rogers to underwhelm him.

Then he’d met the man.

Met him, not as he’d expected to, through one routine mission or another, but in the aftermath of the attack Clint had planned and carried out. The attack that had very nearly taken out the Helicarrier and everyone on it.

The attack that had almost succeeded. He felt a very small, sick and twisted sense of pride in that. It’d taken all the rest of the Avengers and all of SHIELD’s finest to keep him from taking down their base with a couple well placed arrows. Phil probably would’ve congratulated him.

If Phil had survived.

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t, and Tasha had gotten in her blows and Clint’d come back to himself almost too late. Had thrown off the seductive apathy and mindless obedience that had overcome him under Loki’s control and fought his way back, all while Phil lay dying..

Clint had assumed he’d stay there, under guard, no matter how badly he wanted to get out and strike back at Loki. And it had been then, in the midst of some of his darkest moments, that he’d finally met Steve Rogers.

The man had strode into his cell, determined and heroic, asking Tasha if she could fly a quinjet. Clint had interrupted, said he could...and to his astonishment, Captain America had waited only for Tasha’s nod before accepting his offer.

Before agreeing to fight with him, when he’d known what Clint had down.

Yeah, he’d been fully prepared to be unimpressed. But Steve Rogers hadn’t turned out to be a pawn or a fuck-up. He’d turned out to be everything Phil had believed he was.

Too bad Phil hadn’t lived to see Clint proved wrong. He would’ve loved that. Would’ve teased him and laughed and....and Clint would’ve put up with every moment of it gladly, if it just meant he had him back.

But Phil was gone.

Gone, and unable to even appreciate that Captain America was speaking at his funeral.

Clint was too far away to hear Cap’s eulogy, though he was fairly good at reading lips from a distance. Maybe the rest of the team wouldn’t understand why he hadn’t appeared to show--though he knew Tasha would, at least--but Clint felt that he didn’t really have the right. Not when it was his fault.

The other SHIELD agents wouldn’t have wanted him here. Better to stay hidden in this tree, to watch from a distance. To wait to say his own goodbyes until the others had left.

Until then he could watch the casket, watch Captain America talk, watch the funeral for the man he’d loved.

And, somehow, try to live with it all.


End file.
